Seasons Out of Time
by fleurofthecourt
Summary: It's not as sudden as Dean likes to think, but Sam is talking about going back to school, Cas is talking about getting married, and he's still wondering what the hell happened to fighting off the apocalypse. [Dean/Cas]. Warning for Major Character Death.


A/N: Set some time after the issues of s10 have been resolved.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, dies of old age. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you have been warned.

* * *

><p><em>Spring<em>

It's raining.

It's the beginning of the end, and it's raining.

The rain drums and echoes against the roof of the bunker's garage as Dean parks the Impala. He grins lightly at Sam and Cas' dozing forms before climbing out and slamming the driver's side door with enough force that neither of them could possibly sleep through it.

Sam grunts and just misses hitting his head on the window. Cas' eyes widen and flash with alarm before he takes in his surroundings and relaxes.

"We're back," Cas says, his lips turning up slightly at the corners. Dean feels his own doing the same.

"We're _home_," Dean amends as he shoulders Cas' duffel bag and grabs his own.

The three of them walk down the bunker's steps together before Sam gives Cas and Dean an awkward, knowing grin and hastily bids them goodnight.

"I'm going to put our bags down in... my...in our...in the room. Uh..." Dean just barely misses walking into the wall before eloquently adding, "Yeah."

Cas, oblivious or unconcerned with Dean's preoccupation with pronouns, nods and follows a few steps behind. His shoes make little sound as they fall against the hard flooring, but Dean still knows he's got a shadow. It's making him anxious.

He knows where this is going. And yeah, they've slept together and they've _slept _together.

But this - this is different.

This is home.

He pushes his bedroom door back and glances around sheepishly before offering, "So... this is us."

Cas' eyes rake over the room, noting the few changes that have been made since he was last in the bunker. His eyes linger on the still empty right side of the bed. "I do have the other pillow."

"Still?" Dean grins softly and chuckles, some of his tension draining. "You've really been lugging that thing around for what? A year? Longer?"

"It proved useful...even after I left Rexford. It's much softer than most motel pillows, and... it was yours. It was a great comfort to me, especially when I was ill, and you...and you were gone," Cas says, a wistful smile lighting his eyes. "I missed you, Dean."

"Hey," Dean says as he wraps his arms around Cas and rubs soothingly at his back, "Don't get all sappy on me. I ain't going anywhere."

"No, you are not. I hope...I hope we can stay like this," Cas says as he curls his arms around Dean's torso. "Together that is."

"You got no idea how much I want that," Dean says.

"Some idea, I believe," Cas says as he leans in and gently latches their lips. Dean melts into him, and Cas drags him limply towards the bed. He pulls back momentarily to add, "If you want to keep doing this as much as I do."

"A pretty good grasp then," Dean says breathily as Cas pins him into the memory foam.

"Yes," Cas says.

"Hey guys." Sam leans into the still open doorway. "It's great that you want to spend your lives together or whatever. I'm happy for you. Really. But can you do this with the door shut? I'm trying to sleep."

_Summer_

With Hannah leading Heaven, with the occasional nudge and suggestion from Cas, and Crowley ruling Hell, with the frequent reminder that the Winchesters now keep his bones with them at all times, hunts are becoming fewer and farther between.

So after a few run of the mill salt and burn cases, Sam starts talking about going back to school, Cas starts talking about getting married, and Dean starts wondering what the hell happened to fighting off the apocalypse.

He's still wondering on a humid Thursday afternoon in late July when Sam comes back from the post office with a letter accepting his request for re-admittance to Stanford, and Cas comes back from a crafts store with over a hundred wedding invitations to address.

Dean isn't ready for any of it but decides to tackle what he thinks is the smaller issue. "Cas, we don't even know half this many people."

"People, no," Cas says, "but I was the angels' leader for some time, Dean. I like to think some of them would like to attend the ceremony."

"Dude, they wanted my head on a pike," Dean says.

"It is my understanding that many wedding ceremonies are fraught with family tension. Should ours be different?" Cas asks.

"Just not sure these are matches we should be playing with, you know? I'm not exactly Heaven's golden boy anymore," Dean says. "And Hannah's in charge upstairs now, right? She's the one that flat out asked you to kill me, remember?"

"I think she likes you now, now that she's gotten to know you, and you are no longer a demon," Cas says. Then, after a thoughtful pause, he adds, "I don't want any of the angels to feel slighted by such an oversight on my part. I imagine that too could be considered 'playing with matches.'"

"Okay, first of all, Hannah tolerates me for you. Second, if they don't like me, why the hell would they even want to come? But okay. You think this could piss off the celestial equivalent of Eris or something, fine, we'll invite the angels," Dean says. "Heaven got a zip code?"

"Thank you, Dean," Cas says before lightly kissing his cheek. "I will find my roll call list."

"You don't even know all their names?" Dean asks what now appears to be an empty library.

Sam still hears from the hall and replies, "Whose names?"

"The Heavenly Host, apparently. Christ, Sammy, I'm going to have a bunch of single minded dicks watching me get married," Dean says.

Sam chuckles, "I don't really know what to tell you."

Dean sighs, "Don't worry about it. I'll deal. So... going to law school take two, huh?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "I just finished registering for fall classes. Now I just need to find somewhere to stay out there. Somewhere kind of permanent."

Dean turns the newspaper he's been perusing towards Sam and taps at an article about mysterious deaths on a strip of Route 5. "Think there's a phantom traveler deal going on outside Modesto; want me and Cas to go apartment hunting with you after we take care of it?"

"You're not going to try to talk me out of this?" Sam asks.

"I want to. I really want to," Dean says, "but it's because I want you around, not because I can't do this without you. The stuff that's going on right now? Me and Cas, we can handle it. And if we can't, we know where you are. So you better be ready to step up any time we've got to fight off another apocalypse."

"You know I will be," Sam says.

_Fall_

The wind crackles and sweeps leaves under the freshly hewn wood. Dean watches as Cas tugs off his ridiculous over-sized, pumpkin print sweater to reveal the T-shirt he has on underneath, carefully maneuvering it to avoid pulling off his glasses.

Dean smiles softly at the glasses. They're new. It had taken three stubborn arguments and a very serious mix up with a map to get him to admit he needed them.

He fears he'll need them himself soon, but then, maybe he shouldn't. They're getting older. But they're getting older together. That's the important thing.

"You could help," Cas says as he catches Dean's thoughtful stare. "But, I believe we have enough to build a fire. We can make... what did you say they were? S'mores?"

"Still can't believe you've been human for like nine years, and you've never had one," Dean says.

"They may have been mentioned by customers at the Gas N' Sip," Cas says. "I never thought to try one."

"Yeah, well, you were missing out," Dean says as he pulls out a lighter.

"We shall see," Cas says as he sits down on one of the large rocks by their makeshift campsite. "Is Sam still joining us?"

"Yeah, day after tomorrow," Dean says. "Supposed to be tomorrow but guess he met a girl, and they're doing something."

"Oh?" Cas says as he accepts the marshmallow on a stick that Dean is offering him.

"Yeah, all he really said was that she's a librarian," Dean says. "Didn't think that was Sammy's type. More mine, really, well, if we go by you."

"I'm hardly a librarian," Cas says as Dean takes his now golden brown marshmallow and puts a S'more together for him. "This girl though, was her name Laura?"

"He told _you_ about her?" Dean asks gruffly.

"Not that they were dating," Cas says with an irritated eye roll at Dean's sour expression. "That they had met. She was working in an archive that he needed files from for a case. I believe she also used to be a hunter."

"Now that sounds more like Sammy," Dean says.

Cas nods with his mouth full of graham cracker and chocolate, before giving Dean a lopsided thumbs up for it.

Dean watches in pure amusement as Cas starts assembling a second S'more and decides that now is as good a time as any. "So...I've been thinking about something..."

"Yes?" Cas says, gesturing with his marshmallow covered fingers for Dean to elaborate.

"And I want your opinion. Sam's too when he gets here," Dean says as he digs into the pocket of his duffel bag and smoothes out a stack of important looking paper.

Cas frowns at it. "This is the deed to a house?"

"Not just any house," Dean says.

Cas looks more closely at the paperwork and nods. "I see. You wish to live here?"

"Maybe? Well... we're, uh... right now, living in the bunker, it's great," Dean says as he rubs at his neck. "But...well..."

"It is not a place to grow old," Cas says.

"Yeah," Dean says. "There's not exactly a porch for rocking chairs."

"I don't think this house had that either," Cas says.

_Winter_

Snow flurries swirl past the dining room window of the house Dean will never stop thinking of as Bobby's, even though he and Cas completely rebuilt it and have been the only ones living in it for going on forty years.

He sips slowly at his coffee, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and frowns over the small rectangular clip of newspaper that he's read and reread every morning for the past week.

There's a blurry black and white photo of his brother followed by:

_Sam Winchester, 89, died in his sleep in his family home this past Friday, January 15._

_Born in Lawrence, Kansas on May 2, 1983 to John and Mary (Campbell) Winchester, he traveled extensively around the country, offering a variety of humanitarian services, until his late thirties. He then returned to Stanford and earned his long sought law degree. He practiced in northern California for twenty years before ultimately settling in Sioux Falls to be closer to his brother, Dean, and Dean's husband, Castiel. He has been a local lawyer for the past thirty years._

_He is survived by wife Laura (Brown), daughter Ellen (Juan) Martinez, and two granddaughters Gabriella and Maria._

_A short service, led by Castiel Winchester and Charlie Baum, will be held at his brother's home on Tuesday the 19th beginning at 7 p.m._

Dean rubs his thumb over the corner of Sam's photo and lets tears well in his eyes until he hears Cas' cane tapping erratically against the kitchen tile. He starts wiping at his eyelids with the back of his hand, thankful that Cas hasn't been able to sneak up on him in years.

Cas takes the chair next to him, frowns at him briefly, and reaches for the pill boxes on their lazy-susan. He hands Dean his before opening his own, a pointed stare leaving no room for argument. "We will continue to take care of ourselves."

Dean sighs. "It's... he wasn't supposed to go first, Cas. He was younger. Took better care of himself. Ate more rabbit food than all of us. This wasn't... it's not..."

His eyes are welling up again, and he hates it. He hates that he and Cas have had this discussion six times.

Mostly, though, he hates that he's alive and Sam's not.

Cas places his hand on his forearm and rests it there, his arthritic fingers preventing him from squeezing it. "I agree, Dean. All things considered, this was not fair."

Dean is quiet for a long time. Then, even though he knows there's nothing Cas, hopelessly and completely human Cas, can do, he says, "Don't you even think about going first. Don't you dare. Don't you go dying on me tomorrow or anything."

Cas, with faint amusement crinkling around his eyes, says, "I will do my best. I do wish to watch Ellen try to teach Juan how to take care of my bees this summer. She assured me that she could."

"How's she going to do that? Juan's terrified of your bees," Dean says, trying to hide a small smile. "Think he's less afraid of wendigos."

"And you wish to watch too," Cas says, amusement coloring his eyes. "Take your medicine."

Dean, begrudgingly, does.

Three nights later, however, Dean sleeps through Cas breaking his promise.

Before dawn settles on the snow covered salvage yard, a newly formed wave of celestial intent lingers against Dean's cheek and whispers softly, "I'm so sorry, Dean. I did try."

Then light too bright for the human eye engulfs the house in its entirety, shattering all of the light fixtures and breaking all the glass.

Dean opens his eyes and finds himself nearly sixty years younger, sitting in the driver's seat of the Impala with Sam in the passenger seat and Cas in the back.

It's raining.


End file.
